


Ice Cream Cake

by mouseratstan



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: Angst, Birthday Presents, F/M, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:08:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25142155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mouseratstan/pseuds/mouseratstan
Summary: Ben doesn't remember the last time he's had a good birthday, but this one has to take the cake in terms of his worst.This year, his birthday falls in the midst of his break up with Leslie.
Relationships: Leslie Knope/Ben Wyatt
Comments: 12
Kudos: 62





	Ice Cream Cake

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the perfect sunflowers Meg for being my beta for this story, and Cate for helping me come up with a lot of these ideas. Love you both. <3

Ben Wyatt never had the greatest luck with birthdays.

When he was a kid, they usually ended with his parents forgetting all about him and screaming at each other. When he turned eighteen, it was overshadowed by Ice Town. His college years he spent all his birthdays in his room watching all the  _ Star Wars  _ films alone, and for the last several years he spent the day on the road in various cities in Indiana. If he was lucky, he would get to pick up some ice cream and a good book. Most times, they ended with Chris dragging him out of bed and giving him a pep talk that didn't actually help at all.

So, yeah, Ben was kind of used to shitty birthdays.

Except for his last one. His last one, almost a year ago, being his first taste at what could be, some taste of happiness, however small. He was in  _ Pawnee,  _ a tiny town that was starting to grow on him, a town that was loud and cared too much and fell in love with a mini horse, and maybe Ben started to fall too. Not for a horse, but for a small blonde woman that tightened her fingers around his wrists and captured his heart so quickly that it seemed impossible.

He hadn't told Leslie about his birthday, not in any specific detail. He said, at the beginning of November, that it was coming up, but he didn't say when. He figured that was the end of it. She would shrug and move on and he would spend another birthday in a motel room with a pint of ice cream— only this time he would also be thinking of her. Maybe a cold shower or two.

Until she knocked on his motel room door on the day of his birthday. He pulled sweatpants on and ran his fingers through his hair to find her on the other side, carrying a large brown paper bag, sweat beading at her forehead, breathing heavy.

“Ben!” she had gasped, pushing past him to enter his room. “I can’t believe you! I had to find out  _ just an hour ago  _ from  _ Chris  _ that today is your birthday. Oh my god, I didn't have time to plan anything! I would've thrown you an entire rager! A scavenger hunt! I could've hired clowns, a bouncy house, a live concert! God, I could've called up Kay Hanley or something—”

His heart swelled, just at the fact that, out of the six months he had known her so far, she already knew his affinity for  _ Letters to Cleo.  _ Leslie couldn't have actually gotten Kay Hanley to come, of course, but it was the thought that counted most. She set the paper bag on the table and stared up at him, arms crossed. Ben wanted to kiss her. He couldn't, but he  _ really wanted to kiss her. _

“— so I had to make do, in only an hour,” she continued. “God, I hope it's okay. It's probably not much, and I'll do better next year, for sure.”

She pulled out beer and ice cream cake and three movies, and Ben didn't have the heart to tell her that there might not be a next year.

He wanted there to be. God, he really wanted there to be.

***

It was only one birthday. Just one tiny birthday out of so many years, and yet that was the one that stuck. That tiny taste of happiness and Ben got addicted. He felt spoiled, now, as he remembered last year, sitting with Leslie on his tiny couch, giggling over movies, complaining about brain freeze while shoveling ice cream cake into their mouths.

She had only been there for a couple hours, but it was enough. Enough to ruin him for the rest of his life.

His next birthday was steadily approaching in only a week and he felt only the absence of her. Felt the ghost of her fingers on his skin, the way she looked at him after she took his shirt off, like there was no one in the world she would rather be with. The way she would gasp when he kissed her and smile against his lips, curl her arms around him and whisper nonsense into his ear at four in the morning.

Sneaking around, City Hall supply closets, unbuttoning pants and heavy breathing when no one was looking. Passing notes, secrecy, stolen glances, the looming threat of  _ the scandal  _ hanging over their heads like a death omen.

It was inevitable, their break up. Anybody could've seen it coming. But Ben and Leslie were too attached to their rose-colored glasses, becoming blind to what needed to be done. Those glasses were violently ripped from them and snapped in half and now all that was left were the broken pieces, shattered all over the floor, and Ben was alone.

On his birthday.

Like always.

He kind of wished he never had that taste of happiness and ice cream cake. 

He sat in his Assistant City Manager’s office and his hands balled into fists, tightly gripping the fabric of his pants as if to keep himself grounded, to hold on to something before he broke. He stared at his phone on his desk, sitting open to him, her name bright across the screen.

He forgot to change her contact name. There was still a heart there.

Or maybe he didn't forget to change it, but he just never had the strength to.

_ ‘Happy birthday,’  _ the text read, without her usual enthusiasm and love for exclamation points. Ben felt the sharp pang in his chest.  _ ‘I’ll be coming by your office today. Just to give you your present.’ _

Ben’s hands shook as he typed his reply.  _ ‘You don't have to do that.’ _

_ ‘I want to. It's the least I can do when you won't let me throw you a party.’ _

Ben choked, bringing his fist to his mouth so he could bite on it. She'd been trying— she’d been trying so damn hard to just make nice with him, to be his friend, to even have just one small, fun conversation with him a day. And he always had to shoot her down, making him feel like the bad guy. But he had to,  _ he had to.  _ If he didn't, he would just end up doing something he would regret. The night would just end in tears or in her bed. Or  _ both. _

He just couldn't be her friend. It just wasn't possible.

And that knowledge was the worst fucking birthday present he could ever give himself.

So, yeah, he wouldn't let Leslie throw him a party in the midst of their breakup, as much as she tried.  _ ‘I have good reason not to,’  _ he texted back to her, and hours later, she still never responded.

That day, on his birthday, of all days, he made a very important decision.

“Chris?” he asked, coming around to his desk. He hid his hands in his pockets so his friend wouldn't know just how much this request pained him.

“Ben Wyatt!” Chris shot him finger guns. “What's up, buddy?”

“I have a request.” A deep breath. Now or never. “I think… I think from now on we should transfer all Parks and Rec business to you.”

His face fell. “Oh. But what about your smallest park project with Leslie Knope?”

Ben had forgotten all about that. He winced. “After that, then. After it's wrapped up. Just Parks and Rec business.”

“Can I ask you why?”

Ben sighed, looked at the floor. “I just… can't do it anymore. That's all.” It was just too hard, too horrible, too heartbreaking. Any reminder that she existed threatened to snap him in half. He couldn't do it, and he couldn't even explain why to anyone who would ask.

_ Happy fucking birthday to me. _

***

He spent the whole week following his birthday just fighting with her.

Everyday was different and tore him apart all the same. Having to deny her, having to turn away from her, having to see her face fall every single time. He caught her crying once and it was enough to break him, he could barely get to the bathroom in time before he was breaking out into sobs, clutching his chest, feeling like an idiot, such an idiot, crying over a breakup at work like this. 

He didn't want to hurt her, but being around her was destroying him, little by little everyday. And if they went around pretending everything was okay, one day they would just snap. And any happy memories she had of him would just be tainted by the bad that would follow.

No, it was better this way. It gave them a chance to move on, maybe be happy again someday.

Ben was used to shitty birthdays. But never ones quite this bad.

It was a cycle. Yelling, anger, hurt, crying. She yelled, he yelled. He walked away. She pushed back tears. He went home and drank until he forgot what day it was. Rinse and repeat.

Until the smallest park.

He didn't want to come. He almost didn't. It was too hard to see her, and no matter what Ann said, he wasn't sure talking would do them any good. They'd tried talking, so many times, and all it did was end in tears and a hangover.

But then—

_ I wanna be with you. _

This couldn't be real. He had to be dreaming.

_ This is how I feel, how do you feel? _

And his hands were in her hair. She gasped against his lips.

He was unclasping her bra and her skin was on his as if it never left. She was giggling and she was soft.

He woke up in her bed.

He didn't regret it.

“I have a present for you,” she whispered into his shoulder, wrapping her arms around his chest. He let her be the big spoon.

“A present?” he mumbled. He didn't have to check the clock, he knew it was likely four in the morning.

“Because I missed your birthday. I never gave it to you.”

And because she was Leslie Knope and he was pretty sure he was in love with her, he let her pull him up, the two of them clad just in their underwear. They snuck into her kitchen like teenagers trying to avoid their parents, never once letting go of each other's hands, and she pulled open her freezer.

She bought him an ice cream cake. Just like last year. 

“I know it's late,” she said sheepishly, her face turning red. “Your birthday was a week ago. But I just… I had to give it to you. Some kind of present. Even if it's small, even if—”

Her words were cut off with a kiss, Ben cupping her face and pulling her in by her waist. 

They ate ice cream cake until the sun started to rise. By the time they went back to bed, she tasted like it— like chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream and the future and happiness and love.

He whispered words against their frozen lips, trying to get each other warm again. “You didn't need to get me anything,” he told her, and she sighed against him. “The real present was getting you back.”

And it was the best birthday Ben could ever ask for.


End file.
